Im Memoriam Lou Harrison (1917 - 2003) - a tribute performance at Other Minds Festival 9 at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, 2003. This performance was dedicated to the late composer Lou Harrison who passed away shortly before the festival.

King David's Lament (1941; choral version 1985; arr. by Christi Denton 2003)
San Francisco Premiere

Harold Gray Meers, tenor
Mark Morash, & Jake Heggie, piano four hands
San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus
Kathleen McGuire, conductor
Members of the Other Minds Audience

Lou Harrison composed King David's Lament for Jonathan in October 1941. In 1985, he revised the work and incorporated it into Three Songs for male chorus. Baritone John Duykers and duo pianists Robert Krupnick and Donald Cobb premiered the original version at the Oakland Museum on March 19, 1972. The Three Songs were premiered on September 28, 1985 by the Portland Gay Men's Choir, with Gilbert Seely conducting.

In their book "Lou Harrison: Composing a World", Leta Miller and Fredric Lieberman note that Harrison, "included with the score two English versions (King James and the Revised Standard version), as well as the Hebrew, and suggested that the chorus experiment with using all three to create vivid changes in tone color."

The text is from II Samuel 1:26. The version that Lou Harrison has set reads:
"Now I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan;
Dear and delightful you were to me,
Your love surpassing the love of women,
Now I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan."

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